Trumbull commissioners reorganize department

The workers are concerned that a delay in raising rates could mean layoffs.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners reorganized the sanitary engineer’s department, moving the former engineer, Gary Newbrough, to a new position in the department and elevating two managers to take his place.

Commissioners Paul Heltzel and Frank Fuda approved the moves Wednesday. It elevates 23-year department veteran Rex Fee to executive director and four-year employee Scott Verner to interim sanitary engineer.

Commissioner Dan Polivka voted against it, saying he had only learned of the idea that morning. “I don’t know that moving people around is going to fix things,” he said.

But Heltzel and Fuda said the move will put Newbrough into a planner role he may be better suited to handle. His title will be director of project planning. He, Fee and Verner will report to the commissioners.

Newbrough, who has worked for the county for eight years, was assigned sanitary engineer in April 2004, moving from county planning commission director.

In his new position, Newbrough will monitor pending water and sewer projects, Heltzel said.

Fee, the former assistant sanitary engineer, “knows the department inside and out,” Heltzel said. “He knows the staff and what’s been done wrong.”

In recent years, the sanitary engineer’s department has taken on dozens of new projects, some the result of problems the county has encountered with failing septic systems. The department has also increasingly come under fire for mistakes and missed deadlines on a variety of projects.

Problems cited

Last year, Newbrough admitted he misread an engineering study that indicated how a Youngstown engineering company should be paid for work on the Scott Street sanitary sewer project in Newton Township. The $548,000 mistake was eventually corrected.

Heltzel said top managers at the sanitary engineer’s department told him they felt Newbrough had done a poor job of communicating with them.

For example, the group, including Fee and Verner, felt shut out with regard to a study done to adjust water and sewer rates. Commissioners have not passed the rate increases. Without the increased revenue from the new rates, the department will start running a deficit sometime this year, Newbrough has said.

Fee said workers are concerned that not raising the rates soon could mean layoffs in the department.

Fee doesn’t have a professional engineer’s license, something Ohio law requires of a sanitary engineer. Newbrough and Verner have the license. Verner’s former job title was interim water supervisor.

It will take six months to see how well the new leadership team works out, Heltzel said. Their new rates for the three were not available Wednesday. Newbrough makes $74,714 annually, Fee makes $70,928, and Verner makes $52,874.